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Welding thin walled tubes : facing this challenge!

Welding thin walled tubes is a particular challenge for every welder. These tubes with their small diameters are mostly used in value-added industries with a high demand in terms of welding quality and hygienic demands.

No welding error, mistake or is permitted. Exemples would be tube deformation (blow-holes, cavities …) or oxidation as the tube will be unusable.

 

 

Welding thin walled tubes : Prevention is better than the cure

 

There are strict welding regulations for many of the applications using thin walled tubes, due to the pressure of the conveyed fluids. A break in installation can have severe consequences, due to the contamination risks until the repair process is completed. In addition, accessibility to the tube is often constricted and limited. 

When it comes to preparing tubes with a small diameter, every any change of geometry can have a catastrophic outcome. A difference of even a tenth of a millimeter can have serious consequences. Welding in such conditions virtually means “tubular surgery”.

In order to avoid any risk, the welding of thin walled and small tubes must be carried out under the best possible conditions. This starts with the tube preparation (electro-polishing, cutting and squaring) up until the final orbital TIG / GTAW welding with closed weld heads.

The complete guide of orbital TIG welding

 

The advantages of TIG welding/GTAW
for the welding of thin walled tubes

 

Orbital welding equipment is mainly a power supply and a weld head. For welding thin walled tubes with thicknesses under 3 mm, a closed weld head is generally used. The power supply offers a WPS program (Specification and qualification of welding procedures) according to the diameter and the material of the tube, etc.

TIG welding (Tungsten Inert Gas) also called Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) allows the perfect protection of the welding area against contamination by oxygen, as the closed weld head chamber is floated with a neutral gas such as Argon or a mixture of Argon and Helium.

A large number of orbital welding equipment contains an external flow sensor. AXXAIR directly integrates the sensor in their machines, thus enhancing the gas control, and hence the guarantee a perfect quality.

Orbital welding equipment offers a lot of additional advantages. Once a WPS has been certified, the welders can repeat the same weld over and over, with the same quality providing the operation is carried out under the same conditions.

Industries using tubes for high purity productions request the traceability of the welds, in order to be sure about the quality of the initial weld and the repeatability of the following welds.

Of course, no manual welder can offer a perfect traceability considering all the parameters … and the quality of the weld depends on the initial training and the experience of the welder. But even a highly qualified welder will not be able to produce high quality welds day after day … whereas an orbital power supply will guarantee perfect quality and traceability of all the welding parameters.

A guarantee of quality, which should not be underestimated.

Find out more about TIG welding in this free handbook !

cta-orbital-welding-handbook 

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Écrit par
Alicia Wendland

Marketing Manager